The Year of Living Gangsterly

So I’m thinking about leaving New York.

This certainly isn’t something I haven’t considered many times previously, but I’m at the most serious level of consideration these past few days. Besides it being predicted by 1450, I’ve been having dreams about it. Moving, starting anew. I love New York; I’ve spent my entire adult life here and I always thought I’d get married and raise my kiddos here, but I can’t keep hoping that I’ll find happiness, the likes of which I think I deserve, in this place. NYC is such a solitary city and I’m not a solitary person. I find myself yearning for partnership more often than not, but most of my friends who are New York natives just aren’t on that same wavelength…and it’s nobody’s fault. My personality just isn’t made for this, not anymore, although I do have my moments where I want everybody to just leave me the fuck alone. I think I’m kind of in that mood right now, but I blame that on being on the rag.

I could really benefit from living elsewhere, though, nobody can deny this. Especially somewhere I have my family to lean on should I need to. Somewhere where my money will go longer. Somewhere I can have a house and a car. Somewhere Beans has access to her cousins. Somewhere over the rainbow. I keep feeling this overwhelming sadness and I have to change something. I’ll get eaten up if I wait around for something to change automatically. Being proactive is the only way I ever get better. And I tend to believe that God digs it, too.

In somewhat related news, my girl Jo (I quote her on this blog so much I really should pay her royalties) said to me “only date people who adore you” and I almost had a moment. Isn’t that sad? That it hadn’t really occurred to me that I could do so shamelessly? This came up because I guess I have a date on Friday and although I’m not nervous about it, it’s just foreign territory for me and it feels like it. Plenty of people claim to “like” me but they never actually go so far as to ask me out, so I don’t go on a lot of dates. This kat I’m going out with…I don’t know if he adores me, per se, but he definitely digs me and that’ll be a refreshing change. Dating is a healthy move. I need to do more of it, regardless of where I end up. It’s a kind of social interaction I fooled myself into thinking I was content without. I fooled myself into thinking I was content without a lot of things in 2011. Luckily for me I remembered I’m gangsterly.

Oh, let me run by you a little something else I remembered last night–I’m tired of it being assumed that I’m sexually dominant with men. I most definitely will make a move if I want something, in bed or elsewhere, with men or with women…but there’s nothing that gives me a thrill quite like being “forced” to submit by a man. I’m the opposite with women, though, and maybe that’s what people pick up on. Whatever the case, this frustration was re-awakened because of a conversation I had with NOLA. Apparently I was supposed to take the initiative the entire time he was here while he laid back and let me do what I wanted. While that’s fun for me sometimes, I wish he would’ve employed the same determined forcefulness with me. I don’t want to “take” all the time. I want to be taken. Am I cursed to a life where I have to spell this out or can I just find somebody who picks up on it already? It’s there, trust me.

It’s very gangsterly to know what one needs, moreso, even, than what one wants.

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Portishead: “It Could Be Sweet”

And you know what else grinds my gears? Not only the score of this Broncos game right now (seriously, Broncos? Y’all let Brady get five touchdowns in one quarter? K.) but the fact that 1450 is so immodest about his “specialness”. “Everybody sees it in me”. Well I don’t care about everybody on the topic of you, only me. And why you think I see you’re special? Cause EYE am. Stupid! I’m damn near anointed in this bitch.

I’m currently sitting in my favorite armchair, in my favorite pair of sweat pants with my favorite drink (rum and coke) on deck about to watch my favorite football team (Go Broncos) hopefully earn a trip to the Superbowl trying to be cheerful considering all of these favorite things, but feeling melancholy and buried deep within the warm recesses of my sourest feelings nonetheless. It wasn’t for lack of a brilliantly planned day, either. I went to lunch and FAO Schwarz with Beans, Stef and his 18-month old son Kyle. So it was very dichotomous: there’s nothing that will make you feel quite as grown as being an active parent, but not much that will send you into a childlike alterna-reality than a toystore the likes of FAO. The kiddo didn’t even want anything, but that hardly stopped me from buying myself a treat. It’s been a long time since I picked up a collectible toy even though my apartment is full of them. I’m so immature. Whatever.

I’ve been feeling like I’m going through a break-up lately. Like I’m mourning the end of something big. Maybe I am in a certain way. It’s finally sunk in every pore of my body that nothing will ever happen relationship-wise between me and 1450. I have to admit that a part of me was holding out hope that he’d eventually get on the same wavelength I was on, but whereas our differences used to intrigue me now they just make me weary. Even his best friend didn’t want me to give up on him but I don’t enjoy being pushed and pushed and pushed and that final shove, really, came a couple nights ago. There’s only so many times someone you love can basically say “God doesn’t want me to be with you” before you reply “okay well fuck you with all my holy spirit, then”. What I look like fighting with someone’s perception of God’s will? Not at all enjoyable. It’s immensely hurtful, really, to hear that you’re just not in God’s plans for somebody, even if it’s true. That’s some harsh shit, actually. What I do know, though, is that a part of him is in love with me and always will be and a part of me hopes it eats him up inside until it’s spilling out of him. So there.

Okay. Now I’m just being saucy.

I just want to be loved back, already. Loved the way I love. There were so many signs, I thought, pointing to him, but I was wrong. Incorrect where I always thought I was right–deep down inside, where my instincts are born. I can’t even trust myself anymore, obviously. I’m that fucked up. Maybe I don’t even deserve it.

And I know my friends mean well and I love them so much, but I’m getting sick of them telling me that “the right person is coming”. I’m tired of waiting. Where, mayne? I’m stomping my stiletto, here. The parts of myself that I have to give, the parts that used to bloom wildly, are dying, it feels like. With every heartbreak. With every person that takes of my body and my time, who releases my vulnerability just to say “okay, done now”. It started with my ex; his sheningans destroyed me enough. Every perception I had of family was shattered with his betrayals. And just as I’d rebuilt myself from the immense pain of that experience I got cut down again by someone who only apparently wanted me when he wandered away from God’s whateverthefuck. Like your imperfect, fallible humanness can’t be totally fucking wrong? Like whatever message you think you’re receiving ain’t your own fear shouting?

Human beings are just too common for me. Everything is just starting to feel way too pedestrian. Nobody wants to step out on a ledge and let the wind blow anymore. Even I’d rather stay inside these days. In my sweat pants.

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Janelle Monáe: “Say You’ll Go”

First post of 2012 and I’m pretty sure I don’t have anything stunningly poignant to say. The past couple weeks have been a whirlwind and I haven’t really had time to sit down and wax poetic about it. I kinda can’t believe everything I managed to get done since Christmas, actually. Me and the kiddo traveled to Pittsburgh, PA to spend the holiday with my Mom and maternal family, I came back (sans Beans–she stayed in Pittsburgh for a few more days), totally rearranged my apartment, had a visitor (THE visitor, really) from New Orleans, had an amazingly joyous New Years week and Eve with him and my friends, then he left, and now I’m back at work. Whew. The first week or so of work during a new year ain’t shit, is it? It’s so hard to get back into work mode after the holidays. It feels like the longest and most abrupt inhale. Especially after six days of drinking and revelry. My goodness.

Now about NOLA. He was interesting, complex, hard to pinpoint, quiet, almost shy at times…a challenge. And as I’m not used to sharing my space with a 6’5″ southern boy it took some getting used to. In every way I wear my proverbial heart on my sleeve his is tucked far away. I almost never knew what he was feeling or thinking unless he chose to tell me. Or show me…

Tee hee.

As much as I adapted to it, though, I have to admit a weariness when it comes to potentials and their…games…for lack of a better word. Is it not wavy to actually tell somebody you like them and maintain your behavior thusly? Is it actually sexy to some to be kept guessing? I don’t like it. If you want me, take me–I like that forwardness, that aggression. I don’t want to be in the dark or confused and I’m so fucking tired of feeling that way. Even though NOLA and I had fun and shared intensely erotic moments I still have no clue in this world what really happened. I understand that’s how some people chose to protect themselves but that just doesn’t make me tick. A little mystery, sure, but mixed messages? Keep them.

I hear these same stories from a lot of my friends–and not just the women. Everybody is so afraid of “getting hurt” but there aren’t too many important milestones I’ve reached without an element of risk. It’s been said before that a man isn’t afraid to commit, he’s just afraid to commit to the “wrong” woman. Now let’s remove the hetero-normative aspects of this theory and expound. Most of the people I talk to about relationships have been hurt in some way and it makes them less likely to take the kind of giant leaps they took before their world was altered by love lost. There is a profoundly sucktacular disappointment in a break-up…I know it too well. But I just wanna step off the ledge again sometimes. I want to free fall letting my instincts cradle me and not my fears. And I’m starting to get to a point where I lose respect for those who refuse to do the same. Am I wrong for that?

This isn’t to say I’m trying to rush into anything. I know I talk a lot about relationships in this space and it seems like I’m yearning for one sometimes. I’m not trying to rush away from anything is the real point here. It’s really not that complex…the fearsome just make it so. And I can’t say I want to pursue anything serious with NOLA–we both agreed long distance relationships aren’t for us–his brick wall of nonemotions just got me to thinking about the kind of person I keep attracting.”I want you when I want you…but when I don’t I want you to understand that”. Most selfish shit ever, dude. Just cruel, really. I’m not the one. I’m way too magnificent for halfway crooks.

As I mentioned last time I wrote, Christopher moved to Ohio. It’s only been a few days since it’s just been me and the kiddo but it already feels so much harder than before. My girl Jo said to me today “we’re not meant to parent alone” and it made me feel oddly better. Here I was feeling all guilty for finding single parenthood stressful and at times lonely but she is right. Whether we do it with a partner or a village, nobody should have to raise their kid alone. Maybe that’s why the subject of relationships tends to permeate my writing–because I need them. Loving relationships, be they platonic or romantic. I have great friends but most of them have no idea what it’s like to be a parent. They’re clueless about what my life is like. I don’t know how long it’ll take before they realize I won’t be available like I was before.

So everybody makes resolutions at the top of the year. They’ve never really been my thing because inevitably, around my birthday, I start feeling like I failed. But I am resolute in finding peace. I spent the majority of 2011 in some kind of torment. I don’t plan to repeat any of it.

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Foreign Exchange: “Laughing At Your Plans”

How is it four days until Christmas?! How, I ask? And why haven’t I done anything I need to do to prepare? Why, I ask? We’re flying out to Pittsburgh tomorrow morning and I haven’t packed one single thing as of yet. I haven’t bought one Christmas gift yet and I have a six year old who expects Barbie houses and video games. I really need to pull it together; it’s just been a very hectic week or two around here. This happens every year. It hits December and time starts moving in fast-forward. I can’t say I’m not thankful for it; sometimes I just want to get the holiday season over with. It’s not been the same since my Dad passed away in 2008; he was THE holiday guy and nothing is quite as joyful without him. I do have an aforementioned kiddo, though, whose eyes light up in the most beautifully endearing way when she sees Christmas lights and decorations and sparkly baubles so that really gets me through. Her excitement makes the song and dance more than bearable. I just wish my father was here to witness it because I feel like he didn’t even get to know her. He just would’ve gotten such a kick out of her personality. It’s like her dad and I are her biggest fans. She’s just so fascinating to me. And I made her. Grew her in my body. As the youngins say, that shit cray.

I made sangria last night. It was glorious. I felt like that needed to happen in light of it being National Sangria Day and considering my enthusiasm for alcoholic beverages. ¹ I invited 1450 and his friend over to partake. I can’t help it, man…I like being around him. It’s not just about staring at his mouth and the recollection of sitting on it. I just generally like the dude I guess. We hung out over the weekend as well. Of course this completely negates me attempting to put distance between us but I’m torn here. On the one hand I feel like I should do what makes me happy which is being in the presence of somebody I love and care about. But on the other hand I know it’s not enough for me, and eventually I’m going to feel a way about it being enough for him. I wish I could just be a normal person about this shit but I want him to be mine. Sometimes. When I’m ignoring all the reasons it may not work. Number one being because he is a stubborn jackass. ²

See, this actually happened in my last relationship as well. The circumstances were completely different but I ended up feeling similar–that it’s ridiculous to worry about all the reasons shit might not work when you could be enjoying whatever happens until that potential point. That feeling things all in your guts (pause) is the instinct worth following. But nobody I involve myself with seems to be likeminded about it and it’s starting to grind my fucking gears. I think some people find me delusional in that way. Faith usually does seem delusional from the outside looking in.

I’m letting this go, though. No seriously. No really. I’m letting it go. I’d already started to let it go, but realizing I can be around him without falling into my feelings was kind of a revelation. I still love him. But the whole reality of him not wanting to be with me because of things that make me who I am has really started to set in and feel kind of insulting. I don’t want people who don’t want me. It’s just not gangsterly.

And besides, there’s NOLA’s visit to think about. A week away. We’re going to have fun. And fun is what I want to concentrate on. I need mindless drunken irresponsible fun until my Mom brings the kiddo back in January. And then my life will be dramatically different because my daughter’s father is moving back to Cleveland in a few days. I’ve been a single mother for years now, but not one who was doing it alone. Through all of our struggles, Christopher and I have remained like-minded partners in co-parenthood. We still will be, of course, but from one hell of a distance. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous about it…mostly the way it might potentially effect Beans. But also me. It’s hard to explain, really. Because the more I go into it the more it may potentially sound like I can’t take care of my daughter without her father here daily. But I know I can. Just nervous about such a dramatic change in all of our lives which I think is pretty natural.

Let me pack, though. I do this every single time I travel. Wait until the last minute to get my shit together. I guess I work better under pressure.

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Nina Simone: “Love Me Or Leave Me”